Joecool's Amway WWDB Experience

Sunday, November 24, 2013

When I was an IBO in WWDB, the speakers told all kinds of lies. That WWDB was a non profit organization. That the diamonds did not profit from the sale of support materials. That WWDB helps save marriages. That diamonds pay cash for everything.

I remember a function where Greg Duncan said people who made loans were stupid. Hmm, I wonder how Mr Duncan had some homes foreclosed if he paid cash for them? Some IBO's even denied that Mr Duncan filed for bankruptcy even when the State of Montana had public records of it.

Other teaching from WWDB was how your family could skip meals to buy standing orders or skip your mortgage payment as banks won't foreclose right away. That would allow you to attend the major functions. Can you imagine the nerve of these folks to give this advice? Clearly the WWDB leaders wanted to extract as much cash from their downline at all costs. I do not believe they gave a shit about their downline.

While some of this may have reformed over the years, I have been following the blog of a WWDB IBO who indicates to me that the teaching is still pretty much the same. I'm sure WWDB edits out some of the questionable stuff from their CDs to pass accreditation standards but the IBO's are basically being taught the same stuff now as when I was an IBO.

An IBO has been in disucssion with me and he has yet to deny any of what I have mentioned here. He only makes the same tired arguments that my experience is dated, even though the IBO's I get information from are current IBOs.

Beware of the wolves in sheep's clothing. These folks will say they are your friends and mentors but all they really want is your cash. If these leaders were so great and such good examples, why did a tenured leader like Wolgamott walk out on WWDB? Why do they sell their downline voicemail? Who the heck needs voicemail these days? If they had good information that downline could use to build their business, why not issue it on a youtube account and make it free? I think the answer is obvious.

Friday, February 8, 2013

In the past, we have had some really good discussion on this blog recently about how someone can build a business in Amway without abusing downline. I was an IBO in WWDB, and I was given really bad advice from upline. Some of these uplines are still around and apparently still giving some of the same bad advice to downline. Having said that, I believe there are some factions within WWDB who may be operating differently. I contributor on this blog, James C. has explained in some of his comments, how he operates, contrary to the mainstream WWDB teachings. Thus I was inspired to write this post.
My sponsor and uplines were Harimoto, Wolgamott, Duncan. We were taught that Amway saves marriages, and that the rest of the world gets divorced. Ironically, I believe Wolgamott is now seperated and possibly divorced or in the process of getting divorced. Greg Duncan was touted for his financial acumen and told the audience that only stupid people took out loans, even to purchase a home. Then we find out he was in bankruptcy proceedings with interest only loans. This is just a side bar. I will further explain what other advice was given to rank and file IBOs.
My sponsor and uplines told us that we should never miss a meeting. Period. That missing a meeting was setting a bad example for your group. In fact we should always purchase extra tickets to meetings and functions as an incentive to bring guests. We were taught that in addition to standing order, we should be purchasing 5-7 extra tapes/cds each week. Afterall, you can't listen to the same recording each day if you are core. We were told that if you had downlline who quit, you could not cancel a standing order because it was too much trouble to call upline who called upline who finally reached Greg Duncan to cancel a standing order. I found it ironic that they NEVER complained about calling upline who called upline who finally reached Greg Duncan to ADD a standing order. Our group was also told that nobody made a cent of profit from the tools. A lie that nobody has ever been accountable for to this day. If selling products were ever mentioned, it was only so IBOs could earn money to buy more function tickets and/or standing orders.
Our upline also enjoyed holding meeting after meeting, AFTER the functions. Thus IBOs went home after 3:00 in the morning at times, even on nights when the job was waiting for them the next morning. Our upline also taught more tenured IBOs that money wasn't important in the business because we are friends for life. The group was taught that we could have our families skip meals in order to buy more tapes/cds. IBOs were told that they should NEVER quit, unless they give up on life as they would be doomed for financial failure.
This is some of the bad advice I heard from some WWDB leaders. These leaders are still around today and I believe some of this is still taught. What does your upline advise?

Monday, November 19, 2012

So many Amway apologists talk about changes, and that critics are outdated, yet we keep seeing exmples of this stuff where it's painfully apparent that WWDB leaders are still teaching things like this. I will edit and add on more testimonies about WWDB saving marriages.
http://amwayblog.com/brad-wolgamott-blog/
Dreambuilder for life says:
May 6, 2010 at 1:23 pm
For all of you who are being so critical, not once have I ever heard a diamond in Worldwide Dreambuilders claim to be super human or better than anyone else. In fact it is quite the opposite. Worldwide diamonds are constantly saying that they are nothing special, human just like the rest of us. If you put people up on a pedestal you Will be let down because no matter how hard we try, people are not perfect. And here is a nice fact for you; within this organization that many of you are being so critical of, the divorce rate is less than 1% compared to our national rate the ranges anywhere from 60% all the way up to the low 80’s. Get your facts people and quit being so judgemental of other people! I am sure you are not perfect either!
Another WWDB IBO statement:
http://expeditionoftruths.com/2010/03/22/calgary-regional-rally-reflections/
I’m SICK and tired of all the divorces out there, all the negativity out there, so what’s so wrong about re-educating myself with positive energy where people have AWESOME marriages?? By the way, the divorce rate in the normal job world is over 60%, the divorce rate in our line of business is about 2%.
Joe's commentary: I doubt these IBOs are making this up. They are being taught this crap by WWDB leaders, apparently.

Friday, February 3, 2012

One of the things Amway IBOs like to proclaim is that Amway is BBB accredited. Amway may be accredited by the BBB but that rating is irrelevent when it comes to evaluating the Amway opportunity for the independent distributors. Thus, although it would appear that WWDB is not accredited, even if they were, it would not mean that joining WWDB would ensure any degree of success as an IBO.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

I will at least give you my first name. I had this EXACT experience. I was a sucker, believed I could do this. At one point had 2 1500PV downlines, and when I cancelled my standing order, because I could listen to the previous 100 CDs over and over and get the same info, I was shunned, not supported, and after spending good money that I really was stupid enough waste going to out of town functions, am now declaring bankruptcy. This was back in 1999-2001 in the glory days of quixtar, but the tactics are the same, the only way you will make money is to produce your own CD and force it on your downlines! Not sillyness! Completely TRUE!

By John D on WWDB Cutthroat Businessmen Posing As Your Mentors ... at 10:28 AM

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

I have been in touch with an IBO who is in WWDB. Apparently dream building is a big part of WWDB. While it is good to have goals and dreams, I find it somewhat interesting to know that only a select few people in WWDB ever reached these goals and dreams because of their involvement with WWDB and Amway. In fact, despite claims by our upline that WWDB was the "best" and more profitable LOS, there is little or no evidence that this is true. I have not seen many new diamonds emerge from WWDB, but on the contrary, I have seen evidence of WWDB diamonds having their homes foreclosed and/or involvement with bankruptucy. Somme WWDB leaders who taught that WWDB saves marriages got divorced. Ain't that a kick in the shin?

In my opinion, this dream building approach is simply a tactic to get a prospect interested in the opportunity and then the upline will tell the prospect that the way to achieve these dreams is to be dedicated to the system (WWDB). This is the same system that has few new diamonds and diamonds in apparent financial difficulty. These dreams may also help to retain some IBOs in the system as it would seem that quitting Amway and WWDB means these dreams are no longer attainable.

If you are an information seeker or a struggling IBO, a question you may want to consider is whether your dedication to Amway and WWDB progressing you towards these stated dream or if you are simply channeling your money into products and training materials which helps achieve other people's dreams?

Below is an excerpt from a WWDB IBO about dreambuilding:

So that’s why we have pictures and words of affirmation around our house. When you come into our condo you’ll see words like “Overcome”, “do the opposite of the masses”, “The best is yet to come”, “Play Injured”, “Are you living a dream, or just living your life”, “Break through the wall of fear”, “We' re all in” and more. We believe these things motivate us and give us a dream. Then you’ll see stuff on our fridge like pictures of Kelowna where we want to live, Wineries, because we love wine, in my office you’ll see a picture of a Breitling Chronomat B01 watch because that’s the watch I want, you’ll see magazines with inspirational things in them that relate to us. It’s these things that keep our dreams alive.

It’s so important to do this whether you are building this business or not. This what i’m writing about is part of the 95% of what we do with World Wide Dreambuilders. The 5%, the Amway Global portion is the vehicle for the 95%. You need a dream, goals and passion so that you have something to work towards.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Read this blogpost by a WWDB IBO. I can see the flaw in what is being said. Can you?

http://expeditionoftruths.com/2010/06/22/cost-of-business/

So I was thinking this past weekend, as we were booking our flights to Portland for this year’s Family Reunion, the costs to run our business. Now being a sceptical person I keep records for every single expense related to our business and keep a running total to make sure that we are actually making money over what we spend to run our business. I do not include the products we buy because 95% of the products we buy are products that we already bought before. Examples, Multi-Vitamin, Protein Bars, Granola Bars, Water, Energy Drinks, Cleaning products, etc.. That’s all stuff we bought and as a business owner you shop from your own store.

So going back to our hard business costs such as our voicemail system, our digital audio files, books, any business related marketing tools, conferences that we attend, local functions that we go to… ALL of that are for the most parts the cost of doing business. I may break it down at the end of the year but probably not because our costs of doing business will differ from other people’s because not everyone uses all the tools and people build different business’s. However the best thing about all of that, 100% tax write offs. We did our taxes last year and were able to write off every thing that was related to our business. That even includes any samples we gave and KM’s we drove to any meetings that we had. We basically got a cheque back from the government and that cheque covered ALL our costs. So those who say “the tools are a scam”, well I don’t know what to tell you but as a cost of business they were covered by my cheque back from the government.

However having said all of that what business do you know doesn’t cost money to run? Last time I checked it costs traditional business’s like McDonalds, Shoppers Drug Mart, Banana Republic, Gap, etc… TEN of THOUSANDS of dollars a month to operate. They also have employees to manage and pay, lease payments for a building, and a whole whack of other expenses to pay out. We have roughly a FEW thousand dollars to run and 1000% less headache to worry about. Based on that it just makes sense and honestly how can you argue that. I’m sure you’ll try, however this is my own experience and what we are doing. What others do or claim to have done may or may not be what was recommended or advised and if you read it, take it with a grain of salt.

So to wrap it up, does this business cost money to run? Absolutely! Do you get to write it off on taxes? YES. I did it, I got the cheque! Next year when I file, I’ll post the cheque as proof for the seeing is believing folk out there. All business’s cost money to run, just depends on what kind of business your in

Shaun's comment and clarification:

"They didn’t give me a cheque specifically for my business related materials. I get to deduct my business related expenses against my taxable income like you said. I did our regular job taxes first and after that I wasn’t really getting a refund. However after I started to add in all our business related expenses that’s where our refund came which pretty much covered our business expenses for the 7 months we were in business last year"

About Me

I am writing this blog based on my experiences in the Amway/Quixtar business and the opinions I have formed based on those experiences.
I ran a 4000 PV business (with eagle parameters) only to discover that I was not profitable!
I'm not here to encourage any IBOs to quit, nor do I wish anyone to fail. I do encourage IBOs to ask their upline tough questions and I encourage IBOs to closely monitor their profit and losses as does a traditional business owner.

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